Pass renewed commands by pdflatex engine

Question

If I use:

\AtBeginDocument{\let\oldtableofcontents\tableofcontents
\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}{\oldtableofcontents\label{TOC}}
\let\oldmaketitle\maketitle
\renewcommand{\maketitle}{\oldmaketitle\label{BODY}}}

in the LaTeX document (.tex file) it works.

But if it try to pass this string by pdlatex engine (I actually don't want to modify my document) in this way:

pdflatex "\AtBeginDocument{\let\oldtableofcontents\tableofcontents\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}{\oldtableofcontents\label{TOC}}\let\oldmaketitle\maketitle\renewcommand{\maketitle}{\oldmaketitle\label{BODY}}} \
\nonstopmode \
\input{mydocument.tex}"

it doesn't work. I get:

! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [input stack size=10000].
\oldmaketitle ->\oldmaketitle 
                              \label {BODY}
l.176 \maketitle
                \flushbottom
!  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!

What's wrong in the pdflatex command?

Note I need to add the labels to make some test on page numbering using \pageref and the .aux file.

This is a MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}
\author{A. Uthor}
\title{Article's title}
\maketitle
\pagenumbering{roman}
\tableofcontents
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\section{First section}
\blindtext
\subsection{First subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsection{Second subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsection{Third subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\section{Second section}
\blindtext
\subsection{First subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsection{Second subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsection{Third subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\section{Third section}
\blindtext
\subsection{First subsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{First subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Second subsubsection}
\blindtext
\subsubsection{Third subsubsection}
\blindtext
\end{document}

probably unrelated to the question but using \let on latex commands is not guaranteeed to work, betetr to use \NewCommandCopy also using \label after the toc can reference the wrong page — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 17:03
@DavidCarlisle I just tried \NewCommandCopy but I get the same error. In my tests \label works for my purpose. — Gabriele, Nov 07 '23 at 17:09
you are doing the rename twice so will get the same error, on the \label, on longer documents if there is a page break in the table of contents you normally want to reference the first page not the last — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 17:11
please always post the error message from code provided in the question. You are using a document which you have not shown with \maketitle on line 176 — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 17:23
@DavidCarlisle, sorry... I didn't notice that. About labe, I want refer to the last page. — Gabriele, Nov 07 '23 at 17:31
@DavidCarlisle, I think that the issue is not related to the document but to the technique. — Gabriele, Nov 07 '23 at 17:39
That seems unlikely, but anyway if you provided an example it could be debugged (if we just invent a simple example it will work as intended) — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 17:44
even @egreg managed to create a simple example that doesn't error. Please fix the question to have an example of the problem. — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 19:07
the edited MWE produces no error when run with the command shown. The error message you show is still from a different document. — David Carlisle, Nov 07 '23 at 20:31
@DavidCarlisle, I messed up with this issue. I'm so sorry. I tried to delete it but the system doesn't allow me. — Gabriele, Nov 08 '23 at 00:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 07 '23 at 17:45

If I consider the following test file

%%% patchgn.tex %%%
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\author{?}\title{??}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents
\section{something}
abc
\end{document}

and call pdflatex like

pdflatex '\AtBeginDocument{\NewCommandCopy\oldtableofcontents\tableofcontents\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}{\oldtableofcontents\label{TOC}}\NewCommandCopy\oldmaketitle\maketitle\renewcommand{\maketitle}{\oldmaketitle\label{BODY}}} \input{patchgn}'

the produced .aux file is

\relax 
\newlabel{BODY}{{}{1}{}{}{}}
\newlabel{TOC}{{}{1}{}{}{}}
\@writefile{toc}{\contentsline {section}{\numberline {1}something}{1}{}\protected@file@percent }
\gdef \@abspage@last{1}

and no error is raised. I used single quotes rather than double quotes, but the result is the same.

Adding \nonstopmode doesn't change the business (I'd prefer to pass -interaction=nonstopmode, though).

Pass renewed commands by pdflatex engine

1 Answers1